Spawned directly from the popular BuildingsofDetroit.Com website,
"Lost Detroit: Stories Behind the Motor City's Majestic Ruins" features more than 175 pages in full color. Learn the stories behind 12 of the city's most beautiful forgotten landmarks, from the day they opened to the day they closed. We share the memories of those who caught trains out of Michigan Central Station, necked with girlfriends in the balcony of the Michigan Theatre and kicked out the jams at the Grande Ballroom. Order your copy now! >>

After four years in publication and eight press runs, we would like to thank those who have made the book a great success in bringing awareness to Detroit's architecture!

On the book...

Architecture critics sometimes get so immersed in the
jargon of their trade—entablatures and plinths and
the like—that they forget that buildings get built for fleshand-
blood people. In this important book, Dan Austin
and Sean Doerr have restored the real people to many
of Detroit’s architectural landmarks, and not a moment
too soon. The “lost” buildings of their title still stand, or
rather totter, in a dilapidated state, their histories fading
like the paint on their walls. The buildings themselves
may not long survive. But thanks to this book and the
efforts of Austin and Doerr, the stories of these buildings,
and the stories of the people who built them and used
them, will endure.

Who were these lost Detroiters? Mayors and matrons,
train conductors and auto workers, honeymooners and
jitterbugging young couples out for a Saturday night—all
the rich panoply of faces that make up Detroit’s story.
The buildings they inhabit in these pages—the Michigan
Central Station, Vanity Ballroom, Cass Tech High School
and others—held a central place in the story of Detroit’s
Auto Century. It was America’s story, too. Detroiters
lived, loved, toiled, played, celebrated and dreamed great
dreams in these buildings and thereby helped shape a
nation.

This book is blunt about the deterioration of these
landmarks. But the reader need not fear or expect
another of those dreary celebrations of ruins that came
into vogue a few years ago. These structures stand today
as ghost buildings, to be sure, and some of the photos
may make you cry. But more often, the photographs here
will have you staring in wonder at the splendor and the
plenty of what once was.

So don’t worry if you think architecture is beyond you,
or if you don’t know a frieze from a fresco. Austin and
Doerr are good guides, gently leading the uninitiated
through many rooms and hallways of Detroit’s all-but forgotten
story. It’s a fascinating journey, well worth the
price of a ticket.